Circular box for cigars



May 22, 19223. f

A. H. BALLIET CIRCULAR BOX FOR CIGARS Filed Dec. 26 1919 Patented .ll/lay 222, i923.

trasera CIRCULAR BOX FOR CIGARS.

Application Alled December 26, 1919.

To all whom t may concern.'

Be it known that AAnoN H. BALLinT, a citizen of the United States, residing at Allentown, in the county of Lehigh and State of Pensylvania, have invented a certain new and useful Circular Box for Cigars, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to boxes which are intended to retain cigars both during shipment and in the hands of dealers and cusl"t'omers y The main purpose of my invention is to form a circular box almost entirely of wood and at a minimum cost,

A further purpose is to maintain a tight wall in a circular box notwithstanding shrinkage.l v

`A further purpose is to give such resilience to the walls of a circular box that they will yield and resume position without defacement where other walls would be dented and marked.

A further purpose is to form a box from veneers or other thin sheets which are preferably not united but in which two or more thicknesses are used and the openings due to shrinkage and appearing at the joint or joints in one thickness are sealed' by the material of the outer or inner thickness adjoining the joint.

A further purpose is to hold a circular wall of overlapping sheets together by crimping annular metal strips thereon at the top and bottom; and the bottom of the box therein bylimiting its downward movement by the crimped metal.

A further purpose vis to use flanged metal annulus for the upper rim of the box cover and to place a wooden top therein forming the greater part of the cover.

A further purpose is to so construct the box that it. can be made conveniently and cheaply of wood of the Spanish cedar which is so desirable in cigar box construction, permitting direct printing of decorations, brands etc., upon the wood. a

Further purposes are to save cost of labels andpaper edging, to avoid the necessity of extra lining and to combine neatness and strength. y

I have preferred to illustrate my invention by but'one form, selecting a form which l have tried out and which has proved to be practical, successful and quite inexpensive, and which at the same time well illustrates the principles thereof` Serial. No. 347,283.

Figurel is a section upon line l-l of Figure 2 in a box embodying my invention.

Figure 2' is a section of Figure l taken upon line 2-2.

Figures 3 and 4- are fragmentary enlarged sections showing parts of Figure l, on lines 1 1" and 4 4 of Figure 2,

Figure 5 is a perspective view 'of the box without the lid.

ln the storage of cigarse metal boxes have proved so objectionable that wood has been 'used for the purpose almost from the beginning of the trade. In the rectangular boxes this need is easily satisfied and Spanish cedar has so far become the recognized and almost necessary adjunct of good cigar packaging that when this wood became too cxpensive for entire use in the box, veneers of Spanish cedar with less expensive intermediate wood filler were almost universally adopted.r

However, when it came to making the round boxes or cans @in which some of the makers have preferred to package their goods, the bending of the cedar or the bending of the base wood upon which cedar could be or was veneered became impractical, with the result that tothe best of my knowledge no round boxes prior to my own have ever beenmade of cedar or of a cheaper wood veneered with the cedar. Instead, tin boxes and paper boxes have been used. With the tin boxes, sweating of tobacco became so objectionable that hundreds of thousands of cedar linings have been inserted loosely in such boxes with a viewy to taking up the moisture and imparting the aroma and l taste to the cigars of which cedar alone is capable. This has required a complete box construction sufficient to serve the purpose, in addition to the cedar lining; and the box of tin has required lithographing or other finishing which, though expensive, is still unsatisfactory.

A paper box has also been given a lining of cedar veneer but here again the box has been made primarily of the'paper and the paper has required a special finish which at best was not as attractive to the smokerl as the cedar itself. No nish, adornment or imitation has ever been provided which was as popular with .the smokers as the cedar.` which has stood for the best cigar treatment. f

' By the present invention I providea box which is formed almost entirely of cedar,

having nothing else but thin, crimped annular metal bands at the top and bottom and a metal flange on the outer edge of the cover. ln the illustration `this is oonstructed of outer and inner veneers 6 and 7,'

of the veneers.

It is not necessary that the veneers be glued or otherwise secured to each other,`

except as they are both held by these crimped edges at the top and bottom, and in fact I much prefer not to glue them.

I lprefer to use two shells only of veneer and have obtained good results using veneer of one-sixteenth inch thickness with a single length only in each shell for the 25 cigar size and, for convenience in cutting the veneer, using two lengths of veneer for each shell in the 5() cigar size. rThe tops and botto-ms are of ample strength when made of 35g inch sawed ceda-r. However, l. recognize that the number of the shells and the thickness, etc., are not cont-rolling and give this information for the purpose only of instructing the public as to the best w-ay now known t0 me in which to practice my invention.

I find that the crimping of the channel rims at 12, 12 gives a sufficiently rm hold to retain the parts together properly without necessarily preventing slight circumferentialmovement of the veneers; with the result that as the veneers dry out the wood is held under tension or the cracks' between the adjoining ends of the veneers separate slightly or both according as the crimping has held or has not held against circumferential creeping of the veneers. In either event no breakage of the veneers occurs even when the box is dried out excessively. Should such breakage Occur it can be avoided readily by using a lighter weight of channeled edging or not crimping it so tightly so as to permit creeping of the wood within the channel. This feature may be helped by making the channeled edging slightly small for the initial diameter of the wood so that the latter will :fit tightly against the inner edge of the outer face of the channel. The box maintains its ltightness of seal and substantially maintains its continuity of inside and outside surface.

The bottom 13 `may be, and preferably is formed as a single piece of cedar or a single kpiece of vcheaper -wood veneered with the cedar and isl forced vdown into the inner shell to rest against the bottom channeledy edging or at least to be restrainedV from excessive downward movement by it; and at the same time bears about its kcircumference against ,the inside of the shell tightly enough to be retained against upward movement. Any shrinkage of the shell tends to tighten it in place. Retention of the bottom against upward movement can be provided against additionally by glueing the edges if desired.

The top is formed of an annular edging 14, having a cylindrical flange 15y to fit over the top edge of the box to seal the box, and a radially-extending flange 16 against which a sawed solid or veneered Spanish cedar top 17 will rest with the interior `vand the greater part of the exterior surface. rlhis top is preferably fitted tightly into the flange 14 so as to retain itagainst movement therein.

@ne advantage of the exposed wood surfaces of the box is that decorationsas well as the factory number, caution notices, trade marks, etc., can be printed upon it di rectly by an ordinary printing press just as cedar boxes have been printed `for years, printing -upon the veneer for the side walls before they are bent and the box vmay thus be given a complete finish without necessity for labeling, paperedging or any other finish than the printed wood. The crimped edges and the lcylindrical cap flange may be japanned or otherwise finished, however, for additional decoration.- n

Some of the advantages of the box are cheapness of manufacture as compared with other boxeseven without the liningofthe other boxes with cedar; resilience lof the surface by which it yields to a pressure which does not destroy and resumes its shape and appearance, as distinguished from the tin and paper which are permanently dented and marked; improved appearance in having the real cedar finish so highly regarded by smokers; cheapness of marking, in that the cedar can be printed and will give'a good appearance whereas printing on the other surfaces does not show up to quite as much advantage; and having the entire body of the box capable of absorbing moisstead of a lining only for this purpose.

y ture and'give aroma and cedar taste in- It will be evident that the advantage lof my invention may be had by other constructions within the spirit and scope ofy my invention and in viewl of my disclosure herein, without using the form thereof illustrated by'me.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent is 1. A cylindrical box comprising two walls of separate thin sheets having opposite edges of each sheet vextending parallel to the axis, abutting, spaced,circumferentially from the abutting edgesv of the `other sheet and, throughout the greater vpart oftheir lengths having the edges free from fastening devices intended to hold the edges to each other or to the other sheet, in combination with uniting means holding the sheets at the top and bottom of the boX.

2. A cylindrical box comprising a plurality of separate circular walls having abutting edges in each wall in combination with an annular clamp holding the walls together .at the bottom and a wooden bottom pressing against the walls at its edges and adapted to be limited in downward movement by the annular clamp.

3. A cylindrical box comprising a plurality of separate cylindrical walls of veneer having the oints of one protected by the body of another in combination with top and bottom clamping annuli, each holding the two walls together and a wooden bottom limited in downward movement by the lower clamping annulus.

4. A wooden boX made up of a plurality of independent circular walls in contact, annular metal holders for the walls located at the top and bottom and each holding the two walls firmly together and a bottom for the boX held against downward movement by the lower annular holder and against vertical movement by friction against the inner wall.

AARON H. BALLIET. 

